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| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario |
| Locale | Canada |
| Dates of operation | 1899–1923 |
| Successor | Canadian National Railway |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The Canadian Northern Railway [1] (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway ( reporting mark CN), the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
The network had its start in the independent branchlines that were being constructed in Manitoba in the 1880s and 1890s as a response to the monopoly exercised by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Many such lines were built with the sponsorship of the provincial government, which sought to subsidize local competition to the federally subsidized CPR; however, significant competition was also provided by the encroaching Northern Pacific Railway (NPR) from the south.
Two branchline contractors, Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, took control of the bankrupt Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company in January, 1896. The partners expanded their enterprise, in 1897, by building further north into Manitoba's Interlake district as well as east and west of Winnipeg. They also began building and buying lines south to connect with the U.S. border at Pembina, North Dakota, and east to Ontario.
The Canadian Northern Railway was established, on January 13, 1899 [2] and all railway companies owned by Mackenzie and Mann (primarily in Manitoba) were consolidated into the new entity. CNoR's first step toward competing directly with CPR came at the start of the 20th century with the decision to build a line linking the Prairie Provinces with Lake Superior at the harbour in Port Arthur-Fort William (modern Thunder Bay, Ontario), which would permit the shipping of western grain to European markets as well as the transport of eastern Canadian goods to the West. This line incorporated an existing CNoR line to Lake of the Woods and two local Ontario railways, the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway and the Ontario and Rainy River Railway, whose charters Mackenzie and Mann had acquired in 1897.
To reach Port Arthur, which became the lake terminus of the CNoR, the line extended south of Lake of the Woods into northern Minnesota before heading northeast through Rainy River District to the head of navigation on the Great Lakes. The Winnipeg-Port Arthur line was completed on December 30, 1901, with the last spike being driven just east of Atikokan station by Ontario's Commissioner of Crown Lands, Elihu Davis.
Meanwhile, Mackenzie and Mann expanded their prairie branch line operations to feed the connection to Port Arthur. From a series of disconnected railways and charters, the network became 1,200 miles of profitable and continuous track that covered most of the prairies by 1902. [3]
After receiving grants from the Province of Manitoba and the Dominion of Canada in the 1890s, Mackenzie and Mann began building lines further north in Manitoba, with the intention of eventually reaching Hudson Bay. Throughout the 1890s, they reached Swan River, and continued building north between the Porcupine Hills to the west and Lake Winnipegosis to the east.
In 1900, Mackenzie and Mann directed this northern line west into the Northwest Territories (later Saskatchewan), where it eventually terminated at E.R. Wood (later Erwood). This northwestern line mainly carried lumber and was extended to Melfort between 1903 and 1905.
In 1907, the Canadian Parliament pressured Mackenzie and Mann to continue building more rail towards Hudson Bay. In that year, they created a junction on the Erwood to Melfort line near the mouth of the Etoimami river, where Fort Red Deer River existed, and a line was extended north to The Pas. By 1910, the settlement at this junction was renamed Hudson Bay Junction, and the line was completed between the junction and The Pas.
The long section of rail between The Pas and Churchill was never completed by CNoR. However, after CNoR was acquired by CN, the line was completed in 1929. [4] (see Hudson Bay Railway)
Once elected in 1896, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier was eager for a second transcontinental. [5] However, an expansion of the non-CPR railways west of Alberta would be a mammoth questionable gamble for the operators. [6] Adding an equally costly route to supplement the existing uneconomical CP track through Ontario seemed more ludicrous. [7] At the time, the CNoR planned to advance no further west than Edmonton. [8] In 1902, the GTR held talks with Laurier and agreed to build a transcontinental under the auspices of the GTPR for the western portion, with the eastern portion built by the government-owned NTR. [9] The CNoR, which had a charter to build westward to the mouth of the Skeena River [10] was alarmed, but in no hurry, because it believed the GTPR would choose one of the more northerly passes to cross the Canadian Rockies, leaving the Yellowhead Pass for the CNoR. [11] Despite promptings, the GTP was unwilling to collaborate with the CNoR in any joint construction. [12]
In 1905, CNoR reached Edmonton, [13] just as part of the old NWT had changed into the province of Alberta. The rail-line crossed the North Saskatchewan River at Fort Saskatchewan, coming into Edmonton from the northeast, following the present-day LRT track. [14] [15]
After a pause, the CNoR began construction west from Edmonton, and by summer 1907 had gone as far as Stony Plain. A stock market crash that year ceased construction. When construction was resumed in 1910, it was found that extending the Stony Plain line meant frequent crossings over the Grand Trunk Pacific line which had been laid in the meantime. Instead CNoR decided to leave Edmonton through St. Albert. (A bump on 124th Street near Stony Plain Road is remnant of the constructed but abandoned road-bed.) [16]
CNoR's terminus on the coast changed over time. Rather than competing with the GTPR in having a terminal at the mouth of the Skeena, the CNoR accepted BC government subsidies to switch to the Vancouver area. When the GTPR selected the Yellowhead route, CNoR protests created some delay but could not overturn he decision. [11]
In 1911, CNoR workers started on a townsite named Port Mann on the Fraser River. This townsite would accommodate new car shops, and from there, rail-lines would extend to Vancouver and the Fraser River delta.
CNoR's initial expansion in the 1890s and 1900s had been relatively frugal, largely by acquiring bankrupt companies or finishing failed construction projects. [8] By the 1910s, significant expenses were accumulating. The CNoR started construction west of Edmonton in 1910, fully two years later than GTPR. The construction through the Rockies, which was expensive, largely paralleled the GTPR line of 1911, creating about 100 miles of duplication. [17] However, the largest costs were from building on "the wrong side" of the Thompson and Fraser rivers in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia. CPR already had trackage on the desirable banks, forcing the CNoR to blast tunnels and ledges out of these canyons.
The most infamous construction folly on the CNoR in British Columbia happened in 1913, when blasting for a passage for the railway at Hells Gate triggered an enormous landslide which partially blocked the narrow swift-flowing Fraser River. The resulting damage to Pacific salmon runs took decades to reverse by the governmental construction of fishways.
Mackenzie and Mann began their first significant expansion outside of the prairies with the purchase of Great Lakes steamships, the Quebec and Lake St-John Railway (1906) into northern Quebec's Saguenay region and the acquisition of branchlines in southwestern Nova Scotia (the Halifax and Southwestern Railway) and western Cape Breton Island (the Inverness and Richmond Railway). Other acquisitions were in southern Ontario and a connecting line was built from Toronto to Parry Sound.
In 1908, a line, which under later CN ownership was known as the Alderdale Subdivision, was built east from a connection at Capreol, Ontario, on the Toronto – Parry Sound line to Ottawa and on to Montreal. In 1910 a direct Toronto–Montreal line was built. In 1911, federal funding enabled construction of the line Montreal – Ottawa – Capreol – Port Arthur. In 1912, with GTR and CPR holding the ideal southern routes around Mount Royal to downtown Montreal, CNoR started building a double-tracked mainline north by excavating the Mount Royal Tunnel.
In 1910 the company entered the trans-Atlantic liner business with the founding of the Canadian Northern Steamship Company. The subsidiary acquired two liners from the Egyptian Mail Steamship Company and operated them under its Royal Line brand. The pair of ships were renamed upon purchase—Cairo became Royal Edward and Heliopolis became Royal George—and refitted for travel on the North Atlantic. In Royal Line service, Royal Edward sailed from Avonmouth to Montreal in the summer months and to Halifax in the winter months. At the outbreak of World War I, Royal Edward and Royal George were both requisitioned for use as troopships.
On August 13, 1915, the German submarine UB-14 sank Royal Edward, which was transporting troops from Avonmouth to Gallipoli.
Royal George was sold to Cunard in 1916, became an emigrant ship in Cherbourg by 1920 and scrapped in 1922 in Wilhelmshaven. [18]
Plans for a trans-Pacific service were mothballed. [19]
In 1914, to develop a resort on Grand Beach, CNoR bought a 150-acre (0.61 km2) homestead north of Winnipeg on the shores of Lake Winnipeg,
By 1914, with the company's financial predicament threatening the solvency of its major financier, the Bank of Commerce, [20] the CNoR appealed for government help. [21] The last spike of the CNoR transcontinental railway was driven January 23, 1915, at Basque, British Columbia, [22] with Montreal-Vancouver freight and passenger services commencing six months later, [23] and providing a rail network in Nova Scotia, Southern Ontario, Minnesota, and on Vancouver Island. Between 1915 and 1918, CNoR tried desperately to increase profits, but CPR garnered the majority of wartime traffic. The company was also saddled with ongoing construction costs associated with the Mount Royal Tunnel project.
CNoR was heavily indebted to banks and governments, and its profitable branchlines in the prairie provinces — "Canada's breadbasket" — would not generate enough revenue to cover construction costs in other areas. Unable to meet its debts, the company became desperate for financial aid. In 1917, the federal government effectively took control of the company. [24] As a condition for further funding, the government became the majority shareholder. On September 6, 1918, the directors, Mackenzie and Mann, resigned, replaced by a government-appointed board. Subsequently, CNoR executive David Blyth Hanna and his team managed not only CNoR operations but also the federally owned Canadian Government Railways (CGR). On December 20, 1918, a Privy Council order directed CNoR and CGR to be managed under the name Canadian National Railway (CNR) as a means to simplify funding and operations, but CNoR and CGR would not formally merge and cease corporate existence until January 20, 1923, the date Parliament passed the final act to incorporate CNR. [25]
Significant portions of the old CNoR system survive under CN (as the CNR has been known since 1960); for example:
The majority of CN's former CNoR branchline network across Canada has either been abandoned or sold to shortline operators. An important U.S. subsidiary of CNoR, the Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Railway, forms part of a key CN connection between Chicago and Winnipeg.
The Canadian Pacific Railway, also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, known until 2023 as Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001.
The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
The Yellowhead Highway is a major interprovincial highway in Western Canada that runs from Winnipeg to Graham Island off the coast of British Columbia via Saskatoon and Edmonton. It stretches across the four western Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and is part of the Trans-Canada Highway system and the larger National Highway System, but should not be confused with the more southerly, originally-designated Trans-Canada Highway. The highway was officially opened in 1970. Beginning in 1990, the green and white Trans-Canada logo is used to designate the roadway.
Port Arthur was a city in Northern Ontario, Canada, located on Lake Superior. In January 1970, it amalgamated with Fort William and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay.
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, with corporate headquarters in London, United Kingdom. It cost an estimated $160 million to build. The Grand Trunk, its subsidiaries, and the Canadian Government Railways were precursors of today's Canadian National Railway.
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR), running across northern Ontario and Quebec, crossing the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City and ending at Moncton, New Brunswick. The Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) managed and operated the entire line.
The National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) was a historic railway between Winnipeg and Moncton in Canada. Much of the line is now operated by the Canadian National Railway.
Sir Donald Daniel Mann, who was also referred to as "Dan" or "D.D." before his knighthood, was a Canadian railway contractor and entrepreneur.
The Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Railway is a subsidiary railroad of Canadian National Railway (CN) operating in northern Minnesota, United States. A CN system-wide rebranding beginning in 1995 has seen the DWP logo and name largely replaced by its parent company. The DWP line is CN's connection between International Falls and Duluth, Minnesota, where the railroad connects to a short stretch of the former Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway before following the former Wisconsin Central to Chicago, Illinois.
The Canadian Northern Pacific Railway (CNoPR) was an historic Canadian railway with a main line running between the Alberta–British Columbia border and Vancouver, British Columbia. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR). This railway existed mainly on paper, and there were no cars or locomotives lettered "Canadian Northern Pacific". As far as the public and most workers were concerned, it was just a part of the CNoR.
Northern Alberta Railways was a Canadian railway which served northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. Jointly owned by both Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, NAR existed as a separate company from 1929 until 1981.
The Mount Royal Tunnel is a railway tunnel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The tunnel is the third longest in Canada, after the Mount Macdonald Tunnel and the Connaught Tunnel, and connects the city's Central Station, in Downtown Montreal, with the north side of Montreal Island and Laval and passes through Mount Royal.
Gare du Palais is a train and bus station in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Its name comes from its proximity to the former location of the Palace of the Intendant of New France. It is served by Via Rail, Canada's national passenger railway, and by the private coach company Orléans Express.
The CN Tower is an 111-metre-tall (364 ft), 26-storey office building located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The building was built by the Canadian National Railway Company as Edmonton's first skyscraper, and at its completion in 1966 was the tallest building in Western Canada. The CN Tower would remain Edmonton's and Western Canada's tallest building until 1971 when it was surpassed by Edmonton House.
The Old Canadian National rail yard in Edmonton was once the centre of economic activity in that city. Its redevelopment has fundamentally altered the appearance of the city. The former yard occupied a long, narrow strip from 103 Avenue to 105 Avenue north to south and from 101 Street to 116 Street east and west.
James Leveson Ross, of Montreal, was a Scottish-born Canadian civil engineer, businessman and philanthropist. He established his fortune predominantly through railway construction, notably for the Canadian Pacific Railway, of which he was the major shareholder, and advising Lord Strathcona on railway projects in Argentina and Chile. He oversaw the electrification of street railways in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saint John, Birmingham (England), Mexico City and São Paulo. He was president of the Dominion Bridge Company, the Mexican Power Company etc. He was Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 17th Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars and Governor of McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was an avid collector of the Old Masters and president of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. He owned several yachts including two named Glencairn and became the first Canadian to be made a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron. He funded the construction of the Ross Memorial Wing at the Royal Vic; the Ross Memorial Hospital and Nurse's Home at Lindsay, Ontario; and the Protestant Hospital for the Insane at Verdun, Quebec. He lived in the Golden Square Mile.
Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company (LMR) was a historic rail line in Manitoba, Canada, between Gladstone in the south and Winnipegosis to its north.
The Hudson Bay Railway (HBR) is a historic rail line in Manitoba, Canada, to the shore of Hudson Bay. The venture began as a line between Winnipeg in the south and Churchill, and/or Port Nelson, in the north. However, HBR came to describe the final section between The Pas and Churchill.
The Canadian National Railway (CN) Bala Subdivision is a major railway line in Ontario, Canada. It runs between the provincial capital of Toronto in Southern Ontario and Capreol in Northern Ontario, where the line continues as the Ruel Subdivision. It forms part of CN's transcontinental mainline between Southern Ontario and Western Canada.
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